the ethical consumer

jenks

thread death
so a few years ago i read no logo and it reactivated a dormant politic within me. it clarified and placed a number of ideas into one coherent argument and i vowed to 'do something' what this was amounted to was examining how i spent my money - in particular looking at where the things i bought came from - i became a habitue of second hand clothes shops as i got into recycling and composting in a big way - i bought green and i took to organic, i became a label reader scrying for sources.
here's the question: when does it stop being counterproductive not buying from sweatshop nations? how do i know if they are being paid a decent wage? does there come a time when instead of not buying from them we should - i'm thinking of the shift from boycotting south african goods to being urged to buy them and thus support the new regime?
i just wonder when comes the time to re-evaluate where i put my money?
finally where can i buy decent clothes that aren't tied dyed hoodies ( they are unbecoming in a man my age)!
 

Backjob

Well-known member
I hate ethical consumerism.

It's immoral.

Why should I have to pay more for something because it comes with a nice ethical stamp? Does that mean only middle class people can afford to be moral these days? And why is the onus on the consumer to a) find out about how stuff was made and b) hunt down something that isn't "bad"?

It's total bollocks - an escapist fantasy that means governments don't have to regulate corporations, corporations don't have to behave decently, and rich people don't have to feel guilty about having money.

And the tie dye hoodies thing is a bit of a clue - "ethical" products are just another brand, a brand that says "I read no logo".

To your point on "should you buy stuff made in sweatshops" - damn straight you should. Unless you've got some other plan for giving your cash to starving Filipinos, because thrift stores certainly won't do that.

We don't need "ethical consumers" we need global corporate police.
 

jenks

thread death
backjob,
i'm not an ethical shopper cos i feel guilty but because it is wrong that these people are being exploited - look whatever i do is going to look either guilt driven, imperialistic or patronising but what does it look like if i do nothing - for me that would be worse.

"Why should I have to pay more for something because it comes with a nice ethical stamp? "

surely we have to pay more cos how else are workers to get a decent wage - they're not getting it at the moment

"It's total bollocks - an escapist fantasy that means governments don't have to regulate corporations, corporations don't have to behave decently"

of course we need corporations to behave decently but how do we do so? one method is to hit them in their walllets


"And the tie dye hoodies thing is a bit of a clue - "ethical" products are just another brand, a brand that says "I read no logo"."

the point about the hodies is that i don't wear the hoodies, never have worn a hodie, i want to wear stuff that doesn't say"iread no logo"

"We don't need "ethical consumers" we need global corporate police"

don't we need both?
 

bun-u

Trumpet Police
Backjob said:
I hate ethical consumerism.

It's immoral.

Why should I have to pay more for something because it comes with a nice ethical stamp? Does that mean only middle class people can afford to be moral these days? And why is the onus on the consumer to a) find out about how stuff was made and b) hunt down something that isn't "bad"?

It's total bollocks - an escapist fantasy that means governments don't have to regulate corporations, corporations don't have to behave decently, and rich people don't have to feel guilty about having money.

And the tie dye hoodies thing is a bit of a clue - "ethical" products are just another brand, a brand that says "I read no logo".

To your point on "should you buy stuff made in sweatshops" - damn straight you should. Unless you've got some other plan for giving your cash to starving Filipinos, because thrift stores certainly won't do that.

We don't need "ethical consumers" we need global corporate police.

Completely agree with this

This merely reinforces capitalism’s principle that we are all able to ‘vote with our feet’ as consumers…it’s our choice. Ethical consumerism is also a lifestyle choice with premium prices for premium compassionate people that you should know. And yes, how the hell are individual consumers supposed to keep tabs on all the practices of different companies at the point of purchase…particularly when the numbers of products claiming social responsibility as part of their advertising/marketing is on the up…and these claims are a likely to be as facile as any other claim they make (“this toothpaste makes you sexy”…”this toothpaste helps the third world”)
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
Sorry, the "how are we supposed to know what's ethical and what's not" argument doesn't really wash coming from intelligent regular users of the net like yourselves. But, if you need it spelling out, look for the Fair Trade logo in the supermarket:

fairtrade.gif


Anything with that on is guaranteed to be fairly traded - if that kind of thing matters to you.
 

jd_

Well-known member
I think people should boycott companies they think are shit. If enough people acted that way they'd lose money and it might become more cost effective to change how they were opperating. I don't think they care how they do business as long as it's profitable.
 

ripley

Well-known member
"giving your cash to starving filipinos"

It's a bit simplistic if you think that buying from sweatshop/maquiladoras does nothing but put food in the mouths of starving filipinos..

It may be hard to avoid (buying sweatshop), and maybe thrift shops don't directly affect the wages of folk in maquiladoras (although by reducing waste it may affect the climate and energy and lots of other things).. but I don't think the evidence is there that maquiladoras are such a bonus for folk in the country they get set up in.

Especially, I don't know of any examples where they led to many benefits for the economy or standard of living as a whole, or of the likelihood of the country changing its relationship to the multinationals or the already-industrialized (or post-industrialized) nations. I have read some inconclusive studies of effects on the standard of living of the poorest in the countries involved, but they don't include the effects of pollution and destruction of natural resources resulting from the factories. In some cases, they may not dramatically worsen the lives of the poor, but they do set up a powerful institutional structure that is designed to keep them subordinate, uneducated, and at the mercy of the corporation (rather than whatever they were at the mercy of before). Factoring the fact that multinationals choose locations where they don't have to enforce human rights standards or environmental standards. Not sure how to assess what's better, really.

Not sure how changing shopping habits will stop that, but I wouldn't pat myself on the back for buying "made in the philippines" at Wal-Mart or whatever.

in music-related news, note Tego Calderon has said "no" to working with P.Diddy on Sean John fashion, for 2 reasons, one of which is the reliance on maquiladoras in central america, which Calderon specifically says he takes personally. story here: http://www.nypost.com/tempo/01120509.htm
 
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Omaar

Guest
For me, attempting to shop ethically is about not wanting to personally participate in an unfair system. I don't seriously think it will have any real impact on other people's lives (other than my friends'), so i guess it's more of a moral thing rather than a political thing.

Maybe that's a distinction useful to this debate - there is potential personal action along moral lines (or inaction, hence the mention of guilt here), or collective action along poiltical lines (the global corporate police talk etc.)

Anyway, in practice what this amounts to for me is buying toothpaste from a company whose animal testing policy is unknown to me, rather than buying toothpaste from a company that I know tests on animals. This is more of an access to information issue.

I should point out that I'm writing here about choosing between products produced by "normal" companies, not when there is an option to actually buy a product from a fair trading company.

I should also point out that i think morality is not an absolute thing - I try and act morally most of the time, but occasionally transgress. Although I never eat at McDonalds or those other fast food places, but that be by habit rather than any purer motive.

I am also trying not to buy anything american made while their government behaves the way it does.

thanks for that link ripley, that was an interesting article.

What about the ethical consumer and music? I download mp3s anyway(see the mp3 ethics thread for further debate on theics of that), but if I did buy CDs, I would not now buy any recorded by P Diddy. but I might still listen to MP3s.
 

turtles

in the sea
agreed Omaar, i think my buying habits can be sumed up pretty neatly by "I don't support assholes"

Basically if i have a choice in the matter i don't want my money going to people doing things that i disagree quite heavily with (this goes for music as well as normal consumer products). I hope also that my actions might have some small effect on these businesses (coupled with other peoples boycott's, of course), but I'm not holding my breath.

As for sweatshops, i think it's rather obvious that it's in the sweatshops interest to keep it's employees poor and dependant. If they were to actually raise the quality of living of these people eventually they'd start demanding higher wages/benefits/etc, and then the whole sweatshop thing becomes uneconomical. The idea that exploiting the labour of countries with weak labour laws is the only, or even a good way for third world countries to improve their quality of living seems pretty close minded. Sweatshops are a dead end. And besides i think it carries with it a rather heavy implication that the efforts of people in third world countries just aren't worth the same amount as the efforts of people doing the same jobs in industrialized countries.
 

Backjob

Well-known member
yeah but the difficulty about all the anti-sweatshop arguments is that there are two killer pieces of info that you need to answer:

1) How do you know for certain that things would be better if there weren't sweatshops in these places?

I mean life is pretty desperate in Myanmar, partly BECAUSE there are no jobs available working for multinationals. Many countries in Asia which have made the jump out of poverty have done so precisely through being the "factory of the world" e.g. Taiwan (and to a certain extent, Japan).

2) If these jobs are so shitty, why do people want them?

Again, no-one is arguing that it doesn't seem unfair the amount people get paid in these places, and the conditions they work in, but it does seem reasonable to assume that if the wages and conditions were worse than other, local, alternatives, nobody would take the jobs.
 

jd_

Well-known member
What about the effect it has on workers in countries that aren't as poor? I think it's just as much an issue of self preservation as it is about trying to do the right thing for workers overseas.
 

ripley

Well-known member
ah, "rational choice"

"it does seem reasonable to assume that if the wages and conditions were worse than other, local, alternatives, nobody would take the jobs."

I'm not sure it does seem reasonable. The choices people make are based on a whole host of criteria, most of which are based on the information available to them.

When Nike comes to a small village in a place quite remote from the industrialized world, who has access to information about what it will be like to work in a sweatshop? About what the effects will be? And since in many cases the appearance of a new kind of job with new requirements has profound effects on local institutions (social, political, etc).. who is in a position to understand the ramifications? At what point do they have enough information to make an informed choice?

What kind of expectations do people taking these jobs have?
How does the company represent itself to them?

It's clear that working in a sweatshop is different from not having a sweatshop to work in..And perhaps that difference in itself inspires a hope that spurs some to work there - i.e. something new, it might be better. (although I'm quite sure there's a recruiting campaign as well, which I would be very curious to hear. Do you think they say "well, there's no bathroom breaks, and our supervisors will try to stick their hands in your pants, and threaten to fire you if you don't have sex with them, and you will develop breathing problems from the chemicals, etc. etc.")

But also I wonder at what point, in asking people, will you get the answer that it's better. Before they take the job, 1 week after they take it, 1 year after.. And how do you assess their answers? At what point is it worth it to say these people's human rights are being violated and it's wrong?
 

Backjob

Well-known member
Personally, I'm not disagreeing that the gross level of inequality in the world sucks, or that working conditions in many places are poor.

However, you guys need to extend a touch of empathy and common sense to the people who actually work in these places. Firstly, one of the main complaints is lack of unionisation and people getting fired for not working hard enough - in other words people aren't compelled to stay, quite the opposite. i.e. if the jobs were really shitty and the pay sucked compared to what you would make from subsistence farming, people would quit them.

Secondly, PEOPLE TALK TO EACH OTHER. So if your best friend tells you about what it's like working for Nike, and it sounds shitty, you won't apply for the job.

My point is simply that it must be the case that working in a sweatshop beats NOT working in a sweatshop for many people. And if that allows them to make enough money to get their kids vaccinated and go to school, then that's a good thing.
 

turtles

in the sea
Well backjob, you should be happy to know that in my mental argument on this topic you managed to score a few good points. But anyway, this whole argument has struck me as actually being somewhat similar to that being given for the iraqi election. Basically i think the argument for can be boiled down to something like this:

Shouldn't we support anything that makes these people's lives better? regardless of who else might benefit from it, regardless of how much better their lives COULD be, shouldn't we support whatever helps these people out even a little?

Of course my first issue is the hypocrisy. neither bush nor these big companies really care about the well being of these people, their goals are entirely about power. however, in the pursuit of power, they are causing some increase in the quality of living of these people. It's hard when these people who are willing to treat poor people like they're not real people, to exploit them for their own massive profit, to do to them things they would never do to a white middle-class american, when they turn around and say "but look it's helping them improve their lives!"

but nevertheless, shouldn't we try to help these people anyway? It's easy for us rich folk to say "wait for something better" but it's much harder when your starving.

much of people's arguments around here have been along the lines of "it's not really helping them out." In many cases I think their points are entirely valid, but I don't think you can deny totally that there are some positive effects and that in some cases even, the positive may outweigh the negative.

this was the hard part.

But. It all goes back to the hypocrisy, the real intentions of the people doing these things. Right now, some of the things that they are doing are benefiting others, but there is no guarantee that they won't start hurting people again if it suits their aims. As long as no one was watching, Nike was happy to run sweat shops; once people made a big deal of it they had to improve things just enough so that the complains died down somewhat. Bush thought nothing of lying his way into war and then killing FAR more innocent civilians than had died on 9/11 in order to achieve his goals. Both had some incidental side benefits for some people, but i see no reason to believe that they will not start abusing those in vulnerable positions again if it become beneficial to them.

That is why i cannot support these people. Because they have already done massive harm to our world, and they will do it again. Though they may be doing some positive things right at this moment--and really i think the negative still far outweighs the positive--given the system we live in, it is inevitable that they will do more harm again, because it is only their own interests that they are looking out for.

So as i said before, i do not support assholes.
 

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
The whole ethical consumerist thing is a way of avoiding politics and is based on a personological delusion: that corporate capitalistm is 'evil', and if only people behaved more 'decently' then everything would be alright.

This ignores and conceals the systemic and structural nature of capitalism and to that extent it is propaganda, or at least a cloaking device, for capital. It persists in the delusion that capital operates in the interests of the ruling classes, when in reality it acts in no-one's interests.

'Ethical consumerism' is part of kapital's current program of lifestylization - the subsumption of the category of the political under that of 'individual choice'. Bourgeois ideology in itself, in other words.
 
thank you k-punk. i was waiting for you to reply as such.

i dont have my nomenclature down, but isnt there a school of marxists who see 3rd world factory slave labor as an inevitable step in the withering away of the state (one which the West has already gone through).

i agree that ethical consumerism is a way of avoiding politics - thats its appeal to me.

i was working on this senior thesis arguing for a kind of synthesis of a kind of ethical consumerism (bun-u:
This merely reinforces capitalism’s principle that we are all able to ‘vote with our feet’ as consumers…it’s our choice.
), Kantian libertarianism and Peter Singer's thesis in "Rich and Poor":

First premise: If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it.
Second premise: Absolute poverty is bad.
Third premise: There is some absolute poverty we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance.
Conclusion: We ought to prevent some absolute poverty.

Luckily I dropped out!!!
 

jenks

thread death
if democracy is the illusion of choice then one of the choices we are left with is in how we consume (if we have no choice other than to consume and be consumed) and as most of us need to eat and clothe ourselves then how we choose to do so is a choice we can make, rather than have made for us - unless we make our own clothes and are self-sufficient we can make some decisions on how to spend our money.
somehow to equate this attempt at being a thoughtful consumer as opposed to being an unthinking consumer with the greater evil of megacorps seems an unhelpful conflation.
 

turtles

in the sea
k-punk said:
The whole ethical consumerist thing is a way of avoiding politics and is based on a personological delusion: that corporate capitalistm is 'evil', and if only people behaved more 'decently' then everything would be alright.

OR, it's a means of removing yourself as far as possible from the damage that capitalism is doing at present. A way of saying "I want no part in this" (which is not the same as avoiding politics). While working and hoping for structural change, it's a short-term means of mitigating some of the damage that you end up doing to the world as a person living in a capitalist sociey.
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
Ethical consumption and politics are not mutually exclusive. Not consuming ethically is abandoning a course of action that may have more effect than so called political activism. Writing letters and marching in the streets is no match for corporate lobbyists and personal connections.

I think one of the few ways to counteract the power of corporations is to buy and act locally. The more localised, the less centralised.

As for sweatshops, what happens is that peasants are pushed off their land and are forced to come to the city. There they face a stark choice: work in the factory or starve. Not supporting corporations may make them leave these countries and since the land is taken away precisely for the benefit of these corporations, maybe it will stop the landgrab itself.

Ok, so the logic doesn't exactly add up here. The land grabbing corporations are often not the same ones that run the clothes sweatshops. I am at a bit of a loss here.
 
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